Abramoff Intermission: Bloomberg and Prospect

Sometimes the trained eye is drawn to numbers that just don't look right on the page. And sometimes the numbers are not right.

Bloomberg filed a quick & dirty rundown on Abramoff-influenced tribal campaign contributions in December. This would have been quickly forgotten except that it said the Saginaw Chippewa tribe gave $277,210 to Dem's in 2001-2004, versus $279,000 in 1997-2000. Last week the report made a stellar (lunar?) comeback, as a coven of blog-harpies dragged it out of the morgue for a second dance in the spolight

What's the big deal? I argued that Abramoff directed his tribal clients to increase campaign contributions to both parties. ("Invariably".) The Bloomberg report offered one lone published exception, albeit to the tune of less than $2K. Blogstorm ensued.

I based my comparisons on the 2000 and 2002 cycles (data-rich, adjacent in time, and consistent in governing law). Pre-Jack history is sparse, and an eccentric $220K push to the DCCC in the 1998 cycle swamped the Saginaw baseline (which consists of about a dozen transactions). Is it a pattern? Or just a history? [More on that in future posts.]

But something else didn't add up. Literally.

Sifting through subscription-only compilations of Indian giving at Tray.com, the details for 1997-2000 didn't add up to $279K. Used all the search tricks -- ZIP, city, name fragments and variants, checking CPR and FEC directly, and CPI for 527's, and invited other data-monkeys to do the same -- but still came out about $20K short. [Bloomberg relied on compiled summary data only, and did not delve into itemized detail.]

FEC filings are hard to work with, and there are nuances -- checks earmarked for future races, debt retirement for past races, checks refused/refunded, checks written in one period but received and reported in another, reports reversed and resubmitted, checks written between Election Day and New Years. And no compilation is perfect ... but $20K is still $20K -- a healthy red flag.

On further review, Bloomberg's total contributions for 1997-2000 -- D's plus R's -- looked too "fat", by $96,750. And the 2001-2004 total was too thin, by $95,750. Check, double-check, re-check ... something's wrong. Almost $100K of a stated $340K pre-Abramoff total is in the wrong bucket(s).

By my best cut at the numbers, Dem's landed $308,960 in Saginaw Chippewa contributions in 2001-2004, versus $257,210 in 1997-2000 -- a $50K increase, not a $2K decrease. Tribal giving to Democrats increased under Abramoff's influence -- "invariably".

That major dislocation is still present, with minor adjustments. [Disclaimer: All the Abramoff digests are slippery, moving targets. No compilation of FEC data is perfect. Tray.com isn't, though they do good work on the tribal data, which is messier than most. My own extracts may have settled during packing and shipping.]

Next match these figures to the front-page presentation of Saginaw Chippewa contributions. (The Prospect's first spreadsheet, Abramoff_clients.xls , gives essentially the same summary.)

Obvious question: How can Democratic receipts thru September 2000 possibly be higher -- $90K higher -- than the same receipts thru December?

Is the illustration in the body text mis-labeled? Wrong dates? Wrong tribe? Does it include contributions after the stated "Post-Abramoff" period? [I can't reconcile it on that basis, either. It would help if the respective epochs were labeled "Pre-Abramoff", "Abramoff", and "Post-Abramoff".]

Saginaw wasn't the first tribe to grab my attention. The Chitimacha of Louisiana are portrayed as favoring D's before Abramoff got involved, and R's afterward. By my run of the numbers, Chitimacha gave more to Republicans -- not Democrats -- before Jack came along ... and the published summary again clashes with its own supporting detail, and with external data.

And there are other landmarks that just don't look right, to someone who has spent considerable time in the quantitative backcountry.

I have analytical bones to pick with the thesis of Dems Don't Know Jack. Did tribes shift from pervasively pro-Dem giving patterns to pervasively pro-GOP pattern?

In my view, Jack -- as part of his game -- necessarily favored Republicans, but directed very substantial sums to Democrats. "[A]nywhere near the same rate"? Under the appropriate (logarithmic) lens, I have to say yes. Not as big a multiple, but a big one ... on the order of 4X for Dem's, and 6X for the GOP.

But we can't have that argument -- or any argument -- until the data is ship-shape. The Prospect is aware of my concerns, they will review and refine their work as they see fit, and at some point we'll conduct a healthy reality-based exchange.

For reference, here's my best cut at the Saginaw numbers -- also subject to futher refinement:

Comments

RonK-> I have not read your post, I will do so when I get a chance. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would like to hear it, but imo everybody owes you a debt of gratitude for your prior article about the Tribe's contributions, FEC records, Abramoff and Debbie ("nobody can say fuck except me") Howell. Based on the information I have now, the WaPo's Jim Brady was willing to go on Air America and on the Lehrer News Hour and NOT disclose that Debbie's "correction" was more defensible than Debbie and the Post apparently realized when she posted her correction. The only possible reason I know of why Brady would not have released these stale WaPo articles on AirAmerica and the Lehrer News Hour was because his bosses, John WATB Harris and Bob Woodward were baiting a hook for Jane Hamsher in the WaPo's Interactive Ethics chat, Howard Dean, and everyone else who isto the "left" of them. I suspect that your article and the storm it created at FDL played a significant role in preparing Jane, but I know it helped people who read the comments at FDL wrt to comments to their friends and collegues. How much it helped Dean is anyone's guess but from the reports I got of his interview with Katie Couric, he was very disciplined in his Abramoff comments. If I am inflating the actual good your article did, I hope someone will point it out to me. I am sorry to inform you that several commenters at FDL, who I normally respect, still have doubts about your credentials as a Democrat, most do not. emptywheel's timely post was decisive, a metaphoric cavalry charge of support, for you and your loyalties. Her comments at FDL carries enormous influence with Jane, ReddHedd and everyone else. I am basing my opinion largely on some comments by an FDL poster, RBG, about what Debbie told him she knew in an email. Later according to RBG, the WaPo posted this identical information according to RBG.

The Post needs to define it -- because by and large most donations appear to have been "suggested" by Abramoff and/or his "team", some of whom were democrats.

A couple of things I've noticed....

A far larger percentage of contributions to "Democrats" were to Democratic Party committees, rather than to individual campaigns or "Leadership" PACs controlled by individuals, than occurred with Republicans. With the GOP, most of the campaign money went to individual campaigns and "Leadership" PACs controlled by individuals.

Secondly, the Coushatta Tribe contributed to quite a few non-local (i.e. Louisiana) House races and House based "Leadership" PACS --- but ONLY for GOP candidates/officeholders. Both GOP and Democratic Senators got money for their campaigns and PACs however.

This pattern probably has a LOT to do with the fact that in 2002, the Democrats controlled the Senate, and Greenberg Taurig could not afford to completely alienate the Democratic leadership of the Senate.....

What do you conclude from it? (A lot of people use the F-word when I draw conclusions from labeled data, so I'll make it a blind taste-test.)

I don't draw much at all from it, since I have no idea what it refers to (I mean, it could mean the percentage of cloud cover over an eight day period --- and I can't imagine drawing any conclusions about anything from that!) :)